Tom Morello to Headline Tour Protesting Trans-Pacific Partnership

Tom Morello will headline what’s being billed as “a nationwide uprising and concert tour” that will protest the signing of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Anti-Flag, actress Evangeline Lilly (Lost, The Hobbit), Flobots and Downtown Boys will perform alongside the Prophets of Rage guitarist at a free “Rock Against the TPP” kickoff gig at Denver’s Summit Music Hall on July 23rd. Morello’s social-justice–inspired record label, Firebrand, and the digital-rights organization Fight for the Future are organizing the tour dates, which they claim “raise awareness about the dangers of the TPP.”

The TPP is a free-trade agreement the U.S. and 11 other countries that the U.S. government claims “will help increase Made-in-America exports, grow the American economy, support well-paying American jobs, and strengthen the American middle class.” A Fight for the Future press release, teasing the tour, describes the TPP as a “toxic deal.” It claims, “The TPP has little to do with trade, but would provide multinational corporations with new rights and powers that threaten good paying jobs, Internet freedom, the environment, access to medicine and food safety.”

“Working people everywhere have had enough,” Morello said in a statement. “The TPP is nothing short of a corporate takeover of our democracy. That’s why people are rising up to stop it. Corporate lobbyists want to sneak the TPP through Congress quietly; that means it’s time for us to get loud.”

“This fight against the TPP is not about right and left, it’s about right and wrong,” Lilly said. “Whatever you’re passionate about, whether it’s human rights, internet freedom, climate change or food safety, the TPP is a bad deal for humanity, and a threat to the future of democracy. The more people learn about the TPP, the less they like it. It’s our responsibility to sound the alarm, before it’s too late.”

Fight for the Future has yet to reveal where the other Rock Against the TPP shows will take place, but it plans to hold four events across the weekends of July 30th, August 6th and August 19th.

Several artists signed to Morello’s Firebrand will also perform in Denver, including Ryan Harvey, Lia Rose, Son of Nun and Taina Asili. Fight for the Future campaign director Evan Greer will also perform. It will also provide a platform for several speakers who oppose the TPP.

Performers at subsequent Rock Against the TPP shows have yet to be announced.